Introduction
Ask most UK adults whether they care about sustainability and the majority will say yes. Ask whether they are actively changing their lives because of it, and the picture becomes considerably more complicated. This tension – between intention and action, between concern and convenience, between individual responsibility and systemic expectation – sits at the very heart of the sustainability challenge facing brands and retailers today.
At Impact Research, we have been tracking this tension since October 2019. Our biannual Sustainability Study, now in its fourteenth wave, has surveyed over 5,000 UK adults every six months – monitoring attitudes, behaviours, barriers and retailer perceptions across a nationally representative sample. Uniquely, the study runs twice a year (most comparable studies are annual), tracks sustainability perceptions across 74 UK retailers simultaneously, and pairs consumer attitude data with retailer perception data in a single integrated programme. We are not aware of any other UK study that does all of this in combination.
The latest wave, conducted in April 2026, reveals a market at a critical inflection point. Attitudes are shifting in meaningful ways, some encouraging, some counterintuitive, and the implications for businesses that track or communicate on sustainability are significant.
The Attitude Recovery
After a period in which financial pressures clearly suppressed sustainability sentiment, the April 2026 wave shows a meaningful rebound across several key indicators.
The proportion of consumers who say sustainability is a core part of their lifestyle has returned to levels last seen two years ago – a signal that, for many people, sustainable identity is proving more durable than the cost-of-living squeeze might have suggested. Equally, willingness to pay more for sustainably produced goods is up, and the number of people who say they actively make lifestyle compromises to benefit the environment has risen significantly. Perhaps most tellingly, the feeling that leading a completely sustainable life is impossible has declined year on year, a shift that matters because it is precisely that sense of impossibility that has historically acted as the most powerful psychological barrier to behaviour change.
What this tells us is that the narrative around sustainability and accessibility is slowly working. The infrastructure of sustainable choice – recycling services, plant-based options, energy efficiency products, sustainable ranges in mainstream retail – has become sufficiently embedded in daily life that for many people, sustainable behaviour no longer feels like a sacrifice.
The Complexity Underneath
But the headline improvements mask a more nuanced reality, and this is precisely why long-run tracking matters.
While concern about climate change was historically among the top societal worries in our dataset, the April 2026 wave shows it in relative decline compared to concerns about the cost of living, the NHS, immigration and crime. Environmental responsibility, when ranked against competing personal priorities including family, health, financial security and hobbies, ranks eighth out of eleven. Financial security, in fact, saw one of its largest wave-on-wave increases in Wave 14. The backdrop of economic pressure has not disappeared, it has simply receded enough to allow some green sentiment to resurface, but it remains ever-present as a competing force.
One of the most instructive signals in Wave 14 is the divergence between attitudes and behaviours. Commitment to sustainable behaviours has increased, including commitment to a sustainable lifestyle and to reducing carbon emissions. And yet some unsustainable behaviours are simultaneously on the rise: buying bottled water, taking longer showers. One in four consumers still say they make changes and then fail to stick to them, a figure that has remained stubbornly consistent across multiple waves, and which underlines that inspiring intention is only ever half the job. The convenience and consistency of the sustainable option matters as much as the communication around it.
This gap between stated commitment and actual behaviour is not a sign of consumer hypocrisy, it is a structural feature of how behaviour change works. Sustainable options that require effort, cost more, or disrupt routine will continue to face an uphill struggle regardless of how much people care in principle.
Who Carries the Burden?
One of the most consistent findings across all fourteen waves of our study is this: consumers believe the responsibility for meaningful sustainability action lies primarily with Government and companies, not with individuals.
More than eight in ten consumers feel companies need to do more. More than eight in ten feel the same about Government. Meanwhile, seven in ten say they could do more personally and want to. But that stated desire has not historically translated proportionally into action, which reinforces the point that structural enablement matters. As one consistent tracker question puts it: while expense continues to be the biggest barrier to sustainable behaviour, it has dropped significantly in Wave 14, with a notable rise in those claiming nothing is stopping them from being more sustainable. That is a genuine shift in the landscape.
What has also shifted meaningfully is the picture around Government. The feeling that the Government doesn’t take climate change seriously has declined to its lowest level in five years – not because consumers are more satisfied, but because the topic has, to some degree, been absorbed into mainstream policy expectation. At the same time, the importance of local councils in tackling climate change is rising, suggesting a more localised, place-based conception of sustainability accountability is emerging.
For retailers and brands, this creates both challenge and opportunity. Consumers expect businesses to lead, and they judge businesses on whether their actions match their words. In our retailer perception data, credibility of sustainability claims varies enormously across the market and being seen to act, rather than simply communicate, remains the dividing line between brands that are trusted and those that are not.
Retailer Perceptions: A Market of Haves and Have-Nots
Our study tracks sustainability perceptions for 74 UK retailers, using a composite Sustainability Score that blends consumer assessments of environmental friendliness, social responsibility, financial responsibility and ethical conduct, weighted according to what consumers themselves say matters most.
The picture that emerges is one of sharp concentration at the top and a long tail of retailers where sustainability perceptions remain underdeveloped or unclear. A small number of retailers have built genuinely differentiated sustainability reputations. For the majority, consumers are not actively sceptical, but they are not yet convinced either.
Critically, there is a consistent and significant gap between how retailers’ own customers rate them on sustainability versus how the general population does. Customers almost always rate their preferred retailer more positively, in some cases by a substantial margin. This matters because it tells you that sustained communication with existing customers on sustainability has a measurable effect. But it also means that perceptions among non-customers are considerably harder to shift, and require a different kind of effort entirely.
Our data also demonstrates that knowledge of a retailer’s environmental activities does not automatically translate into positive perceptions. Some high-visibility retailers generate considerable consumer awareness of their sustainability efforts without that translating into strong credibility. Transparency and familiarity are necessary but not sufficient; it is the credibility of the underlying actions that drives belief, and greenwashing scepticism remains a real force in the UK market.
The importance of sustainability in retailer choice, while still ranking below value for money and product quality, is at its highest level in three years in Wave 14 – a trend that has been building quietly and which suggests the window for differentiation on sustainability credentials is narrowing.
The Emerging Signals: Technology, Diet and Localisation
Beyond the core tracking metrics, Wave 14 surfaces three themes that reward particular attention.
Technology as an Environmental Ally
Seven in ten consumers believe that advances in technology will play a major role in solving environmental problems – a figure that has held consistently high. Renewable energy, smart home technology and electric vehicles are seen as having the highest potential. AI is viewed more cautiously: awareness of its environmental implications is limited, and impressions are polarised. But when presented with specific applications – energy efficiency, recycling optimisation, renewable energy management – responses are notably more positive. Brands that can articulate how they use technology in service of environmental outcomes are entering a receptive audience.
Sustainable Diet – A Window Opening
The belief that changing one’s diet to be more sustainable is ‘a step too far’ has declined significantly in Wave 14, and the importance of eating a sustainable diet has seen a meaningful uptick. This is a space that has long lagged behind other sustainability behaviours; it is a more personal, more habitual domain than, say, recycling or energy use. That lag appears to be narrowing, and brands with a genuine story in food sustainability are entering a more receptive communications environment than existed even 12 months ago.
Localisation of Sustainability Sentiment
Preference for locally sourced products has been rising consistently for three years in our data, with a particularly pronounced effect in spring waves. The importance of local councils in the fight against climate change is also growing. This is a meaningful shift: sustainability is moving in public consciousness from a global abstraction – distant, overwhelming, contested – to something more immediate and community-level. Brands that can ground their sustainability narratives in local, tangible impact are likely to find a more engaged audience.
The Value of Continuity
The most important thing about a study like this is not any single wave. It is the fact that we have been running it continuously since October 2019, through a pandemic, a cost-of-living crisis, multiple changes of Government, and the full arc of sustainability’s rise, plateau and partial recovery as a public priority.
What that longitudinal view gives us, and gives our clients, is something no single-wave study can provide: the ability to distinguish genuine shifts from noise, to identify cyclical patterns from structural changes, and to give contextual meaning to any number that would otherwise be unanchored. When we see willingness to pay more for sustainable products return to two-year highs, we know what drove it down in the first place. When we see climate concern declining relative to other issues, we know whether this is a blip or a trend. Context is not a footnote, it is the entire value.
We run Wave 15 in October 2026, continuing a dataset that by then will represent seven unbroken years of UK sustainability tracking – biannual, nationally representative, and covering both consumer sentiment and retailer perceptions in a way we believe is genuinely distinctive. For any business making long-term decisions about how to position, communicate or measure progress on sustainability, that continuity has real strategic value.
About the Impact Sustainability Study
The Impact Research Sustainability Study is a biannual syndicated survey tracking UK consumer attitudes, behaviours and retailer perceptions on sustainability. Running since October 2019, Wave 14 (April 2026) surveyed 5,044 UK adults across two questionnaire routes — consumer attitudes & behaviours and retailer perceptions — weighted to be nationally representative of the UK 16+ population. The study covers 74 retailers, a proprietary six-segment sustainability consumer segmentation, and optional bespoke client modules. Wave 15 launches in October 2026.
To discuss how your organisation could benefit from Wave 15 participation or access to the Wave 14 dataset, please contact the Impact Research team.